At least 3 homes lost in wildfire near Bayview

At least three houses near Bayview, Idaho, went up in flames Sunday afternoon in a fast-moving wildfire that began near the Lake Pend Oreille shoreline, raced up a steep hillside and chased residents from dozens of cabins and homes. As darkness fell, additional homeowners on the north side of Scenic Bay were encouraged to evacuate as the Cape Horn Fire continued to burn out of control. Others in town were advised to be ready to flee the resort community by morning. Crews on Sunday evening had set up a fire protection line along East Duwamish Drive to try to keep the flames from advancing into Bayview, said Jim Lyon, spokesman with Northern Lakes Fire District. Residents need to heed the strong recommendation to evacuate threatened areas, and everyone else should stay away from Bayview to ensure firefighters can do their jobs, Lyon said. The fire quickly grew to more than 600 acres and sent up a large plume of smoke visible from Coeur d’Alene to Sandpoint. The Bonner County Sheriff’s Office initially ordered residents to evacuate the East Cape Horn Road and East Perimeter Road area, which includes lakefront cabins and some large homes farther up the hill. A rock slide temporarily blocked crews from reaching some of the homes in the fire’s path. Residents and vacationing families gathered in Bayview to watch the fire move toward the town. Planes dropped loads of retardant and helicopters dumped buckets of lake water on the flames. “I could sit at my house and see the flames come up over the hill,” said Norma Jean Knowles, property manager of Bayview Scenic Apartments & RV Park. “It’s real scary – very sobering. We’re a heavily treed area, it’s been exceptionally dry, and it was very, very windy today.” Knowles, who lives on Perimeter Road, said she asked her tenants in Bayview to leave the area. Tyler Davey, a mechanic at MacDonald’s Hudson Bay Resort in Bayview, said some cabin owners near the fire loaded possessions onto boats and brought them over to the marina in Bayview. “The smoke is really limiting our visibility right now, but it’s really working its way toward town pretty quickly,” Davey said Sunday afternoon. “There’s a lot of people hanging out at our marina hoping their house is still there.” The fire began northeast of Bayview on the other side of Cape Horn from the community. Officials haven’t determined how it started. The American Red Cross Greater Inland Northwest Chapter opened an emergency shelter for evacuees at Timberlake Senior High School in Spirit Lake.

Fires burn across Northwest

•In Stevens County, the 231 Fire burning 7 miles south of Springdale, Washington, was 25 percent contained Sunday evening. It had burned 880 acres since Friday. The Williams Fire north of Colville was 40 percent contained Sunday evening after burning 332 acres since Friday. There were 266 firefighters on that blaze. •A new fast-spreading fire near the central Washington town of Quincy burned 5,000 to 10,000 acres and temporarily forced the evacuation of several dozen homes Sunday. Gusty winds whipped flames late Saturday and scorched grass and sagebrush overnight. An order to evacuate 15 homes was lifted by Sunday morning. Elsewhere in Grant County, crews tackled a fire that started Sunday morning and had threatened a mobile home park in Moses Lake. •In Asotin County 6 miles northeast of Anatone, the Gilmore Gulch Fire broke out Sunday just after noon and grew to 2,500 acres, threatening ranch homes and crops. •About 21 miles south of Republic, Washington, the Twenty-One Mile Grade Fire has burned about 2,200 acres, two homes and outbuildings, and was 20 percent contained Sunday. There were 347 firefighters assigned to that fire. •The Junction Fire that scorched more than 2,000 acres south of Goldendale, Washington, destroying a home, an apartment, a hay barn and several outbuildings, was contained. But the 250-acre Horseshoe Fire continued burning unabated on the western flanks of Mount Adams, where it has closed a number of trails, including the Pacific Crest Trail. •Smoke from wildfires in Canada cast a haze over the Port Angeles area Sunday. Winds are blowing smoke from wildfires burning on Vancouver Island southward, over British Columbia and into the Olympic Peninsula. •In Oregon, one cabin burned and other structures on scattered ranches were threatened by the Corner Creek Fire, which had burned nearly 26,000 acres on the west side of the South Fork John Day River.